Receive a rewrite request from Murky Depths for my short story, “Psong,” a supernatural thriller about a psychic assassin set in Amsterdam. They had some kind words about the story, and some useful feedback that I feel will make it even better.

So I spent the morning working on a second draft and just sent it off to them now. There’s no guarantee they’ll like it, much less accept it, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In his note the editor mentioned he knew who I was from past submissions and remarked that I’ve been very close to making it into the magazine. Here’s hoping this is it!

• Currently reading: Dark Passage, by David Goodis

Finished reading Scott Smith’s The Ruins the other day and greatly enjoyed it. It’s probably one of the best horror/suspense novels I’ve read in a long time. I’ve already passed it off to my wife so she can read it next — and so we can watch the movie, which comes out on DVD next week. I’m anxious to see how it shapes up against the book. I’m not one of those people who gripes about every little difference from the novel, but since Smith wrote the screenplay, I’m curious to see how it is.

Scott Smith is an interesting writer. The Ruins has done fairly well, commercially and critically, and it’s the author’s first book in something like twelve or thirteen years, since A Simple Plan, which was also quite successful. I looked Smith up online and he doesn’t have a website, and the few interviews I found were nothing more than the usual p.r. fluff. I dug deeper, trawled a few blogs and message boards, and was surprised (although not that much, I must admit) to find that some horror aficionados seem to have a problem with the guy. Not the book, mind you, but the man.

It’s nothing personal, of course. In fact, the reaction is quite similar to the one received by Elizabeth Kostova after the publication of her own breakout hit The Historian. Again, you had a hitherto-unknown author publishing a horror novel that is reviewed well and sells well, but among one particular segment of horror fans, she is seen as having committed some sort of publishing faux pas, apparently because she didn’t start out publishing short stories in the small press. At least that seems to be the gist of it. The argument goes like this: Why should Scott Smith or Elizabeth Kostova get the money and the fame and not… well, enter the small press horror writer of your choice.

It’s a silly argument in itself, but it’s especially insulting to those few writers who are fortunate enough to make that big leap directly to major publishing houses without having to fight in the trenches of the small press. Of the writers I know, most are either working toward full time writing careers or they’re just having fun. I don’t think either group would balk at a contract with a major publishing house if such an offer were presented to them, which makes me think the bitterness directed toward writers like Smith and Kostova is rooted more in jealousy than anything else.

The argument is doubly stupid because regardless of the author’s publishing roots, The Ruins is a damn fine read. If you have a chip on your shoulder about evil “popular fiction,” get over it and check out this book. I think you’ll dig it. I know I did.

• Currently reading: The Trade Mission, by Andrew Pyper

“Buffalo Money” has been accepted for an upcoming issue of Great Western Fiction.

Yee-haw!

My apocalyptic Peterborough story “Everything Gets Bigger After Nuclear War” (think The Road Warrior on the water, or Waterworld except it doesn’t suck) will be reprinted in the Permuted Press anthology Best New Tales of the Apocalypse.

Not sure when it’s coming out, but the story selection process is supposed to be done by September, so I should have an idea around that time.

• Currently reading: The Ruins, by Scott Smith

The Fix reviewed Cemetery Dance #58, and here’s what they had to say about my story:

Of all the stories in this issue of Cemetery Dance, only Ian Rogers’s “Inheritor” made me stop and shiver. It is surely a sign of an effective horror story that, even when read on a crowded commuter train on a bright summer’s day, the final paragraphs can leave a reader dread cold.

Daniel Ramis is estranged from his family, so on the death of his father, he is surprised to discover that he has been left his childhood home, which Daniel had assumed sold years before. Dragged back there against his better judgment, Daniel also discovers that he has been left some unfinished family business.

Rogers does a very fine job of building a sense of anticipation and dread as Ian is drawn from his safe city life back to small town America and the long-abandoned farmhouse. The ending is handled with a compelling economy that allows for chills but no histrionics. It is clever writing and effective storytelling.

It’s always nice to get any kind of feedback, since short fiction is seldom reviewed anywhere, and it’s even better when that feedback is positive.

You can read the entire review here.

• Currently reading: "Skull-Face," by Robert E. Howard

I haven’t posted in awhile. Been pretty busy, working on the novel, cutting the lawn, re-watching Millennium on DVD. And dealing with some bad news: found out Thor has diabetes. Last week we noticed him acting a little dopey, drinking and peeing a lot. I took him to the vet and they performed a blood-glucose test. Healthy cats have a rating between 5 and 8. Thor’s was 27. So we were quite upset and stressed about the whole thing. We took Thor back in on the weekend when he seemed to be getting worse. He turned out to have a fever and was given a shot of antibiotics. More stress. Monday we brought Thor in yet again, found out things weren’t as bad as they initially thought. A urinalysis test determined Thor didn’t have ketones in his urine, which meant his diabetes wasn’t as bad as it could be, and could probably be managed by switching him to a low-cal diet and a pill taken daily. This was much better than the two injections of insulin a day we’d originally been told would be necessary.

So Thor’s joie de vivre has been slowly coming back. He’s been on his kitty meds for a couple of days and his fever has been resolved. He’s playing a bit, cuddling with us more, and has pretty much stopped hiding under the bed, which was upsetting Kathryn a bit. Upsetting me too. I’ve had Thor ten years as of this month, and it was a pretty serious blow to hear he had diabetes. But after some research we learned it wasn’t so bad, and when we found out his case was relatively minor we were that much more relieved. Even better, cats who are diagnosed early and switched immediately to low-cal diets have a very high chance of their diabetes going into remission, unlike humans and canine which are apparently stuck with it for life.

Suffice to say I haven’t been feeling so hot lately. Kat and I took a much-needed road trip this past Sunday. I had been planning it for a couple of months as I needed to do research for my novel. The trip was a success. Many notes and pictures were taken. Now I’m ready to get back to work.

Some good news: I received an e-mail from one of the editors at Broken Pencil who asked permission to reprint “Camp Zombie” in a forthcoming anthology featuring some of the best stories that have appeared in BP over the years. It was nice to be asked, especially since the story hasn’t even been published yet. The anthology will be published by ECW sometime in 2009.

So that’s what’s been going on with me lately.

• Currently reading: Demon Theory, by Stephen Graham Jones